Preparing your artwork for print can often seem overwhelming with numerous technical terms to consider. To ensure the print reflects the quality of your product and the time you’ve spent on the design, you need to present your artwork to the printers in the best possible way.

We understand the printing process may be confusing, so we’ve created a handy guide to help you. It’s full of hints and tips and a pre-printing checklist to ensure the process is as smooth and stress free as possible. Here’s a few to help you:

Technical terms and phrases

You’ve probably heard the phrases bleed and crop marks? But, what do they mean?

Bleed refers to designs where colour goes up to the edge of the paper. To achieve this, the printing colour goes beyond the edge so when the print is trimmed, the print goes to the edges. If your artwork does not have any bleed, there is a risk that a small white edge may appear on your print!

Crop marks are lines printed in the corner of your artwork so that your printer knows where to trim the paper. These can be easily forgotten, but are a very important step so remember to include them on your artwork before submitting to print.

CMYK and RGB are two different ways of using colours in artwork. For printed materials, make sure the colours used in your artwork are set as CMYK, and not RGB, which is a colour model for digital communications. If you supply artwork in RGB format it will be automatically converted to CMYK. However, sometimes there are unexpected colour changes. To understand more about colour, have a look at our ‘Colour Clarity’ brochure which is also included in the Print Buyers’ Pack.

Are you ready for take off?

To help you remember everything you need to do, we have produced a handy checklist to get you the best results for your print. As a final check, we send you a proof of the artwork before we print so you have the chance make sure it is correctly aligned and positioned. We want your print to be as you imagined it.

Order your FREE Print Buyers’ Pack!

We have created a free Print Buyers’ Pack designed to help our customers understand the magic you can create when working with a high quality printer and to help you to make clear and informed print decisions. It includes our ‘Ready for take off’ leaflet which includes how to package your fonts and helps you understand technical terms.